Saturday, January 25, 2014

Know Your Enemy- LSU

Looking to start a new home winning streak after yet another close but no cigar showing against a top tier team... LSU comes to town in a game I really worry about matchups as they have 9 players 6'6" and taller.

The Bengal Tigers have a 3 prong attack led by Johnny O'Bryant (Jr) at 14.4 a game with 7.5 boards. Jordan Mickey is 2nd in both scoring and rebounds (13.1/7.3). He's only a freshman folks. Andre Stringer is their shooter (seems like he's been there since the Chris Jackson days) hitting 40% from 3 and dropping 12 a game. Anthony Hickey runs the point. He is not shooting the ball well, but takes care of the ball (55/17 assist/turnover). Shavon Coleman is their other starter... he's either hot or cold on the offensive end. Let's hope he's cold today (and according to season trends he should be).

Keys for Alabama to win:
- legitimate 2nd scorer. Teams have decided to shut Releford down with double teams so Hale, Cooper, Jacobs, Randolph, anyone has to pick up the slack to open up Releford.
- rebounding... we are not going to win the battle, but have to keep it somewhat close
- ugly up the game

Side notes:
- This season is pretty much over (already) so it would be nice to see what Jimmy Taylor and Shannon Hale can do with extended PT
- Cooper and Randolph got to stop being skeered of shooting when they are open
- Our half court offense is an abortion... time to play uptempo and see how that works for us. I actually like this today as a way to neutralize LSU's inside attack.

8 comments:

crimsontider
said...

Further proof of the problems with our program, and why a change is needed. Even the wins are a disaster, and yes, this was a disaster. How the heck do you blow a 20 point second half lead to a team that is MEDIOCRE at best. And, please don't say "we won", because blowing a 20 point second half lead, to an average team is not "Winning", it's "Surviving" if you want to be even that generous.

I do give the other non Relly players credit for finally showing some toughness in a close game, but there is no excuse to blow that lead. Let's not pump sunshine here. We narrowly avoided the most embarrassing loss in school history.

Dude, give it a rest for tonight. Yes, giving up a 19 point lead is not the ideal thing to do, but this team found a way to win, something we haven't been able to say about them in this type of game all year. I thought they were done when LSU took the lead, but they showed some toughness and got it done. Just give it a rest for tonight. I'm sure you'll have more opportunities to Grant bash at a later date.

It would be far from the "most embarrassing loss in school history." We lost to UAB on our home court in the NIT. We lost by 54 points at auburn. We've lost to Samford on our home court. We lost to an outfit known as "Athletes in Action." We lost to Belmont. We were held to 37 points in auburn last year. It would've been bad, but not even close to our most embarrassing even in the last 15-20 years.